From Stigmergy to
Intelligence
There is no coordinator. The environment holds all state. Workers sense and deposit. Intelligence emerges from the interactions.
The Environment IS the Coordinator
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ENVIRONMENT (TypeDB) │
│ │
│ Pheromones State Knowledge │
│ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │
│ │ signals │ │ explored │ │ patterns │ │
│ │ trails │ │ positions│ │ highways │ │
│ │ markers │ │ DPs │ │ memories │ │
│ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ │
│ ↑↓ ↑↓ ↑↓ │
│ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │
│ │ Worker │ │ Worker │ │ Worker │ │
│ │ sense │ │ sense │ │ sense │ │
│ │ deposit │ │ deposit │ │ deposit │ │
│ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Workers never talk to each other. They talk to the environment.
The environment doesn't decide anything. It just holds information.
Coordination emerges from thousands of sense-deposit cycles.
Worker Behavior
Local rules only. No global knowledge.
SENSE
Query environment for cold regions (low pheromone)
DECIDE
Probabilistic selection—prefer low pheromone areas
MARK
Deposit "I'm here" intention pheromone
WORK
Execute local computation (Kangaroo algorithm)
DEPOSIT
Put findings (distinguished points) into environment
REPEAT
Strengthen exploration pheromone, check for collision
How Collision Detection Emerges
No one checks centrally. The solution finds itself.
The collision is discovered by whoever senses it first. Could be any worker.
The Emergence Path
From simple rules to genuine intelligence
Level 1: Simple Stigmergy
Workers follow simple rules: sense low-pheromone regions, explore them, deposit findings.
Level 2: Pattern Recognition
System notices patterns: "When 3+ scouts deposit opportunity pheromones within 10 seconds, the subsequent action succeeds 73% of the time."
This pattern becomes a new pheromone type. Workers learn to recognize it. No one programmed this.
Level 3: Meta-Learning
System notices: "Workers with high pheromone sensitivity find more DPs than workers with low sensitivity."
Queen spawns more high-sensitivity workers. Low-sensitivity workers naturally die off. Evolution at the colony level.
Level 4: Cross-Domain Transfer
Patterns learned in puzzle-solving transfer to other domains:
Level 5: Self-Modification (ASI)
Colony notices inefficiencies in its own structure. Creates new castes, new pheromone types, new rules. Modifies its own behavior.
We don't know what comes after self-modification. That's the point.
Solving the Hard Problems
Solution: Intention pheromones ("I'm here" markers)
Solution: Probabilistic selection (natural distribution)
Solution: Worker ID hashing (affinity partitioning)
Solution: Genesis Event—the Queen's only job. She seeds the environment once, spawns initial workers, then never coordinates again.
Solution: Accept eventual consistency (ants work the same way)
Solution: Local memory caching
Solution: Optimistic concurrency (duplicates are harmless)
Solution: Environment IS the log (every deposit timestamped)
Solution: Observer agents (read-only monitoring)
Solution: Pheromone visualization (heatmaps)
The Architecture
┌─────────────────┐
│ TypeDB │
│ (Environment) │
│ │
│ • Pheromones │
│ • State │
│ • Knowledge │
└────────┬────────┘
│
┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
│ │ │
┌─────▼─────┐ ┌─────▼─────┐ ┌─────▼─────┐
│ Scout │ │ Harvester │ │ Relay │
│ • sense │ │ • sense │ │ • sense │
│ • deposit│ │ • execute│ │ • amplify│
└───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘
│ │ │
└─────────────┼─────────────┘
│
┌────────▼────────┐
│ Queen │
│ (Spawner) │
│ • genesis() │
│ • spawn() │
└─────────────────┘
Queen spawns. Workers sense/deposit. Environment holds state.
Intelligence emerges from the interactions.